


Between This and That

by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 100-word sections, Alternate Canon, Episode Re-Write, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-21
Updated: 2006-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/pseuds/ideal_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teyla sits, quiet, uncomprehending. She watches Charin, undead, and tells herself this cannot be real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between This and That

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things about "The Real World" is that they use Wraith organic material to fake out the nanites. Since Teyla already has Wraith DNA, I couldn't figure out a way around that nifty little clause, so I just um, ignored it? Hey, it's science-fiction! Plus, I wanted to focus on Teyla's "coma world," and try to parallel the episode. Also, I tried to write both of the other prompts that I was given ("Phantoms"-related team bonding, or full-on AU) and I just ended up writing myself into a corner on both. I hope you enjoyed the story, [](http://irony-rocks.livejournal.com/profile)[**irony_rocks**](http://irony-rocks.livejournal.com/)! Thanks to E for audiencing and J for beta. All mistakes left are mine.

Teyla wakes up with a smile, her body pressed into a nest of furs, the smell of t'mae sweet in her nose. There is a moment, the bridge between this and that, and then she is awake, scrabbling for a weapon, anything, but she cannot move, her wrists bound tightly. She has not smelled the tea in years since the coming of the Lanteans, the Great Exodus.

"Teyla." The voice is familiar, but misplaced by death and time. "Teyla, please, you have been quite ill. The fever, we thought--"

She turns, Charin hovering close. "We thought we lost you."

*

There's a flurry of activity, her hands unbound and pillows arranged. Charin holds out a steaming mug the source of the sweet smell. Teyla accepts the offering, Charin's hands busy on the quilts. Teyla falters, recalling the Ring Ceremony, the echo of song as they waited for her death -- waited for the Wraith to come and take them.

Then Charin is speaking, tells Teyla of how she collapsed, how Sora of the Genii carried her to the 'gate and "to home, back to us."

She sits -- quiet, uncomprehending. She watches Charin, undead, and tells herself _this cannot be real._

*

Carefully, and with all the skill her mother taught her, she convinces Charin to leave her alone for a few moments under the guise of refreshment. Teyla asks for the nuts of the oolock tree and Charin smiles, indulgent.

"Promise you will not wander, little one." Old words, ones Teyla remembers like the lines on her palms. She nods, her eyes down.

The moment Charin leaves, Teyla slides from the covers, her fingers greedy for the wooden walking staff by the door. A moment, the quiet colored by the call of children, and she peeks outside, dazzled by the sunshine.

*

Teyla wakes, calloused fingers against her wrist.

"You must stop giving us such a scare." Charin presses a cool cloth against Teyla's cheek. "It has not been easy since your father's death, and then Halling, so quickly after."

Teyla coughs, her throat suddenly raw. A sip of water and she is able to speak. "What do you speak of? Halling was with me, on Atlantis, there" There's a flash, a moment where Charin's face melts into the shock of sunlight

"Oh, little one. I have seen fevers take memories before, but not in one so young. You're safe now."

*

Teyla is quiet, asking little and listening to all. A girl helps her prepare for bed. It is from her that Teyla realizes that she has somehow dreamed away years of her life, the Ancestors arrival still foretold.

Teyla steps through the traditions of bathing and undressing, sends the girl away once the light has been doused.

Then there is a shadow at the mouth of her tent, tall and lean with a shock of hair unlike any Athosian, and she cries out, affection surging in her chest, the night air cold on her skin.

But there is nothing there.

*

The next morning, she rises with the sun, prepares her own tea and dresses for the Gathering. Charin speaks pleasingly when Teyla steps out of the tent, but Teyla recognizes the lines around Charin's mouth as worry. Teyla feels clumsy, disconnected, and when Jinto (much rounder and excitable than her recent memory recalls) challenges her to a mock spar, she finds her fingers numb from cold.

"It is not even forewinter yet." Teyla lets Charin lead her back to her tent.

"It is a question of balance, little one." Charin unwinds Teyla's scarves, loosens her boots. "You must stay still."

*

After the midday meal, Teyla feels better, takes Jinto's arm and lets him lead her to the river's edge. They sit together, Jinto skimming rocks on the surface of the water.

"I am glad you are here." The boy's voice is high, not yet dropped into the young man's voice she knew. "Since my father was"

She knows this conversation, had it once herself, the position skewed. Charin sat in her spot, and Teyla's weapon of choice was a switch she cut from the reeds. "It will get better, Jinto, with time." She stands, offers her hand. "I promise."

*

They perch on the edge of an embankment shaped as a great open mouth. She turns, a moment of unease sounded by the scuff of her soft-soled shoes, small pebbles crumbling into the rippling water far below. Jinto clutches her hand tightly, tugging her back, an arms length from the lip where earth meets air. She leans against his small frame, feels the same tightness under her skin from before, throat burning. She hears her name, the word a hiss of metal on metal, and holds her breath.

Jinto makes a small, worried sound. "We should go back."

She breathes.

*

"I do not know why you want to leave us, Teyla." Charin's face is in shadows, the lines of her hair melting into the weave of her shawl. Teyla nods, her eyes slipping shut in the mockery of a dream. She does not tell Charin about the shadow flying on the ceiling of her tent.

There's a press of fingers on her palms, encircling her arms, the dry whisper of skin on skin, the smooth press of Bonding on the crown of her head. She wakes with a name on her tongue she can't forget, but she does not speak.

*

Her wrists are bound again, and she tugs at her restraints. This time the leathers are tough and unyielding.

There is a presence in the room, a man with hay-colored hair.

"I am Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tegan. Loosen these bindings, now!"

The man rises, and Teyla thinks maybe she has found an ally, but instead, his palm presses against her forehead, fingers slipping into her hair, biting under her skin.

The pain builds to a well-honed pitch, a familiar one now, Niam's smile on the man's lips. It's the song of the Asurans, the usurpers, _the enemy._

She screams.

*

Teyla opens her eyes and they are all around her, those who she knew, those who she is meant to know. Those who she loved and lost. Her father is there, long dead he places the last stone in the Circle. Their voices sing the old songs, the ones that tell Teyla that she is lost, dead.

She's not, though, Teyla is not lost to them, or to Atlantis, to _John._ She slides free from the funereal garb, ignores their cries and pleas, ignores the pull in her stomach.

 _"You have to fight this,"_ he tells her, so she does.

*

There are scores of them clutching at her, their cries piercing, but hollow. She runs to the ruins of the city, lets her memories take her to the familiar hollowed-out tunnels where _then_ ended and _now_ began. She skids to a halt, falling to her knees, the dying evening light glinting off the necklace _she_ once lost and _he_ once found.

"Teyla, this way." She looks up, but he is already a shadow. She knows which direction he is headed in, knows she will be asked to leave everything behind, again. "Run." Closing her fingers around the necklace, she goes.

*

She runs to the river, faces from her past and present dipping in and out of the shadows. They tell her if she leaves, Athos will fall, and that it will be her undoing. There are hands on her throat, encircling her arms and legs, tugging her down. She is torn free by a blur of black on blue.

"Teyla, you have to listen to me." John, his hands on her arms, yanks her up, steadying her until she can stand. "You've been infected by nanites. They're trying to take control of your mind and body. Don't let 'em. _Fight._ "

*

"Teyla, please, you are lost without us." Charin, propped up on her cane, joined by Jinto, his face red from crying. Halling and her father stand silently, their faces near-identical masks of reprimand.

She's brought back by the squeeze of John's fingers on her arm. "You have to fight them," he tells her, the flash and ripple of the 'gate just over the edge of the embankment. "You know which way you have to go."

The 'gate is a circle of sky blue just over the lip of rock. She holds her breath, waits.

 _"Fly."_

She steps off the edge.

*

Dr. Beckett finally lets her go, once her quarantine period expires. John's profile is in shadow on the other side of the infirmary, still under observation. Dr. Biro thumps her boots against the floor as she zips the enclosure behind her. She sheds the gear, her hair a wild halo around her head.

"I told him to get some rest." Dr. Biro makes a face as she peals the suit away, leaves it on the floor. "With his ATA, we need to watch him more closely."

Teyla leaves quietly, tries not to let her eyes linger on the shadowed figure.

*

She finds herself in the gym, stepping through motions she has not completed in years. Morning light is spilling across the floor when the doors finally slide open.

"Still up, huh?" John is wearing scrubs, his eyes cast down.

Teyla swings the staffs, changes her grip. "I am glad to be awake."

"It's, uh, good to have you back." John dips his head, a hand to the back of his head, tugging on his hair. "If this is the real world, what if I'm infected"

"John." She safely stows her sticks, turns back and catches his hands in hers.

*

"We thought we lost you." John's hands are on Teyla's shoulders, the familiarity of their movements not lost on her. She tries to speak, but is distracted by the flutter of his eyelashes as he looks down and away. He does not move. "I thought I lost you."

Her breath hitches in her throat, and her palms press at shoulders, his shirt soft under her fingertips. They lean into each other, slowly fitting against each other with careful movements.

"I would not have been able to do it without you," she says, quiet. "You helped me find my way home."


End file.
